The Privy Council Office (PCO) says it did not investigate an alias used by the new Canadian Human Rights Commission chair Birju Dattani in a controversial social media post.
“Due to an administrative error, PCO did not search for alternate names,” a PCO spokesperson said in a statement to CBC News on Monday.
In June, Dattani was appointed top commissioner of the CHRC, becoming the first Muslim or person of color to lead the organization.
Shortly after his historic appointment, national Jewish organizations cited anti-Semitic social media posts they made under the name “Mujahid Dattani” and a controversial appearance on a debate panel in the UK.
As the secretariat serving the Federal Cabinet and the Prime Minister, the PCO is responsible for background checks on all Governor-General appointments.
“The aliases were not identified or shared with our security partners who conduct background checks,” a PCO spokesperson said. “Once this oversight was discovered, PCO shared the aliases with our security partners, who are currently completing the necessary investigations.”
The spokesman added that the PCO would review the background check process in the case and that no documents listing Dattani’s aliases, or the existence of any aliases, had been provided to the Prime Minister’s Office or the Minister of Law and Justice’s Office.
“This is in line with our normal practice for appointments of this nature and this incident has caused us to review it,” the spokesman said.
A spokesman for Justice Minister Arif Virani confirmed last week that Dattani “disclosed a false name to civil servants as part of a security assessment of Dattani.” Chantal Aubertin, the minister’s spokeswoman, said the name had not been provided to Virani’s office.
Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) Defendant Dattani Dattani was arrested after posting an article on X (formerly Twitter) that compared Israel to Nazi Germany. The post and Dattani’s account appear to have been deleted.
CBC News has not seen the alleged post. Dattani himself said he has never compared Israel to Nazi Germany. He said he shared an article without comment that likened the plight of Palestinians to that of prisoners in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, adding that he disagreed with the assertions made in the article.
In 2015, Dattani spoke on a panel in Britain with members of Hezbollah Tahrir, an Islamic fundamentalist group that seeks to establish a new caliphate and opposes Israel’s existence.
Dattani said he did not know the affiliations of the other jurors and had never met them before.
CBC News reached out to Dattani’s lawyer, who declined to comment.
